Are Holiday Pop-Ups Worth It For Business Owners?

A pop-up retail space is a temporary space open for a specific period of time, normally one or two months. Examples of pop-up uses include sample sales, Halloween, and Christmas stores.

There are many benefits of pop-up shops, one being that business owners do not have to sign a long-term lease. It is also a relatively low-cost way to start a business. Other reasons include media attention, testing products, locations, or markets.

Cons: Sharing space with companies you might not agree with ethical practices or product, website quality

Look how {horrible} the website for “SoHo Holiday Collective” looks:

While some companies succeed each year as a pop–up and become permanent stores (examples include Birchbox (operated as a pop–up Holiday 2013) and Eva Shaw Designs (participated in Creeds Collective in December 2012), other stores are overwhelmingly disappointed.

One of the brands at Republic Collective this year wrote: “shitty pop–up…not heavily trafficked”. The turnout must have been so unimpressive that the Republic Collective started advertising on Facebook the last two days of their event. Even though the pop-up ended 20 days ago, there are still ads on our Facebook page:

It’s a bait and switch…The Republic Collective promoted the need for businesses in a press release:

REALITY: Republic Collective found a hodge-podge of 18 brands to participate in their pop–up, ranging from menswear, mens footwear, womens ready-to-wear, houseware, etc. There was no consistency, on price-point, target audience, or marketing campaign.

Assuming each of these 18 brands paid $5,000, Republic Collective raised around $90,000. If one of the agreements is to split a portion of revenue, the Republic Collective could have raised even more.

In theory, it sounds like a no-brainer for businesses…but in reality, its a mirage of companies giving, but not receiving an equal benefit.

We could also use “Creeds Collective” as another example (since at this point you all might be thinking we’re hating on Republic Collective). On their website,

Creeds Collective is the love child of Creeds of Love and Concept Collective. We’ve partnered this coming holiday season to create a socially responsible interactive Holiday PopUp Shop.

The brands appearing in Creeds Collective are said to go through a “Corporate Responsibility Vetting Process”

While we bet that most of these companies do check off one or two of this “Creed”, we can guarantee that doesn’t drive traffic to the store.

The Creeds Collective website was definitely the best out of all three market places, but after speaking with one of the participants, they said Creeds Collective was unable to drive traffic to their pop-up.

This is a consistent story with the other pop-ups.

In summary, the only winners are those hosting the pop-ups. We think a majority of these brands do not see a return on investment, time, or increase in brand awareness. What it takes to make a successful pop-up takes 3 months of prep work, PR, a cohesive brand-mix, and local community engagement. We saw that with the above mentioned “successful” pop-ups.

What do you think about the pop-up concept? I would love to hear on Facebook, Twitter, or email at Danielle@sohostrut.com!